Contact after leaving

[notsureunsure]

My DH got dismissed on medical grounds with PILON recently. DH felt incredibly guilty that he was not able to tell his client that he would be leaving the company.

After his dismissal, he realised that his old work email account was still working. He emailed the client from his old work email account telling them that he was dismissed on medical grounds and that he was sorry that he wasn’t able to finish the project himself. He then wished the client the best for the future.

The owners of the company were very angry about this (the client complained that DH wasn’t the one finishing the project). The company accused DH of damage to the company’s name.

DH is upset because he thought that it would be best for the client to hear the news from him and didn’t mean to cause that damage.

Was he being unreasonable for doing this?

Once you’ve been dismissed you don’t use work email. Yes, company should have shut it down instantly but (in my opinion) your DH shouldn’t have even looked to see if he could access anything. Company needs to have control over how they message the change in personnel…for all DH knows they were planning a personal call from someone senior and now he’s prevented that careful messaging.

He shouldn't have used the work e-mail. Was there anything to prohibit him from contacting a former client in a private capacity?

Thank you.

I think part of DH’s issue is that he didn’t want the client to think he had served his notice and not inform them of his departure etc. leaving DH look like “a bag guy” for leaving without telling the client.

He was massively unreasonable not to use his own email address, yes.

So why didn't he use his personal email address?

Not that he’s aware of.

DH didn’t want to take the client’s email address from the company to then email the client from his personal email address. He thought that would be stealing.

I see his point, but I also see the point of the company 🤷🏻‍♀️

Your DH had no right to use the company email although I see why he did it.

He should have looked the client up on LinkedIn.

Sorry but completely inappropriate by your DH. He doesn’t know how the company were going to manage his former clients - possibly a personal call / meeting with one of the company’s seniors with a detailed plan about how the change would work.

Your DH was very short sighted, while wanting to say he was going he had no go forward plan to share which is really important when managing client changes. Instead he has been responsible for a customer complaint and put future work / the company reputation at risk.

If he wanted to contact the client but didn’t want to “steal” the e mail address from work he could have looked up the contact details via LinkedIn or even just Googled.

In an extreme case he could jeopardise some / all of his pay off as it could be construed as gross misconduct bringing the company into disrepute.

This really is a big no. There iwas quite possibly a non-solicitation clause in his contract preventing him making contact even if his intentions were not for gain.

Client details are also likely to be covered by GDPR and could cause a lot of embarrassment.

Ultimately while it's the company's responsibility to remove access, your DH is also responsible for not accessing information he is no longer entitled.

Thank you. Yes, I agree he was shortsighted.

Though I’m not sure about the damage to the company part. At the end of the day, they made the decision to dismiss him on medical grounds, DH told just told client the truth.

What I don’t understand is that how he had caused damage to the company, when he just told the truth. They made the decision to dismiss DH on medical grounds, then they got angry because a client ended up knowing the truth. Isn’t that a sign that they had done something wrong in the first place? IFSWIM.

No they haven’t done anything wrong. Clients will accept there may always be change , people leave / get sick etc. - it is how it is handled that matters. Imagine the client was you and the message you received was effectively I’m (project manager) leaving. No detail about how it was going to be managed going forward / who the new project lead was. You would be pretty fed up and annoyed - and possibly tell others about how poorly it was handled.

When an individual leaves / is dismissed the company will have a strategy on how to manage client and will implement it - ( been there myself several times to implement the change for the client when someone has left ) not for your husband to decide how it will be managed. The company will be angry not because client knows the truth about your husband but because they didn’t get to implement an appropriate hand over strategy with that client and how it would move forward.

Thank you all for your comments